Music Education
“It’s unplayable,” said the virtuoso pianist and composer Milij Balakirev, “there are passages in this work that I simply can’t manage.” Alexander Scriabin seriously damaged his right hand frantically practicing this composition, and Maurice Ravel remarked that his goal in writing Gaspard de la nuit was to compose
Music Education
John Holmes, ABRSM’s Chief Examiner, reflects on the connections between assessment and progression in music learning. As teachers, we know that assessment is an essential part of learning and progression, guiding students from one stage to the next via clear signposts. The two distinct types of assessment – formative and
Music Education
Grade 5 Theory has a unique place in music education. Not only is it a prerequisite for the Higher Practical ABRSM Grades but also mandatory for many contemporary, pop and jazz courses. Each year across East and South East Asia, approximately 34,000 candidates sit for the Grade 5 exam.
Music Education
Excerpts – including a quasi-analytical reduction in musical notation – from a lecture given by Mark Lindley on April 15th, 2008 at Bilkent University. The reduction of the first movement was played on a piano and was followed visually by the students while hearing simultaneously a recording of a proper orchestral performance.
Music Education
Sometimes a tremolo is just a tremolo, but sometimes there’s more to it than that. Pianists, when you’re playing orchestral reductions of opera scores, the pages can seem littered with tremolos. At worst, they can make you feel like you’re a living player-piano in an old saloon;
Music Education
Part of the job of the music staff working on an opera is to deliver notes to the singers. Notes, in this context, are basically “things the singer is doing wrong”. If you’re a music staff member with compassion, this process can leave you feeling at best like Toby
News
Interlude, Hong Kong’s classical music portal invites its readers to a passionately curated audio-visual knowledge portal. With contributors from diverse fields such as Psychology, Art History, Media Studies, alongside, the Musicians and the Musicologists, one is introduced to themes, which are organised around music history to contemporary music festivals.
Music Education
Even though pianists can boast some level of extraordinary abilities when it comes to being ambidextrous, we too are subject to our natural tendencies to favour our right or left hand. Let’s set aside for a moment what our limb-favouring means for our technique at the piano. Instead, let’
Music Education
Everyone who takes a music exam hopes to achieve a distinction and this needs careful preparation of the supporting tests as well as the pieces. Sight Reading Sight reading is playing or singing a previously unseen piece. Sight reading is tested in practical music exams because it is an important
Music Education
The best thing about opera is that it takes any human emotion, and blows it up to huge proportions. There’s really no such thing as “mildly happy” or “somewhat down” in opera; even an explosive emotion like anger is amplified. With so many anger-inducing headlines on our news feeds
Music Education
Gaining a distinction in a music exam is a great achievement. A distinction means that the candidate has achieved a high percentage when measured against pre-determined criteria: ABRSM: A distinction mark is 86% or higher Trinity College London: A distinction mark is 87% or higher London College of Music: A
Music Education
Unless a singer has perfect pitch (and a few of you lucky ones do), they’ll appreciate being given a starting pitch from the rehearsal pianist. Often, a pianist’s first instinct is to do exactly that: they play the singer’s first note on the piano, with one finger,